Father Foley says mass with his lips too close to the microphone; the loudspeakers pop with every plosive, making the boys wince. ‘How telling it is,’ he says in his sermon, shaking his illustrious golden-locked head, ‘that Daniel’s short life should come to its end in a restaurant devoted to doughnuts. For in some ways, is our modern way of life not comparable to one of these doughnuts? “Junk food” that satisfies only temporarily, that offers a “quick fix”, but has, at the centre of it, a hole? Is that not, indeed, the shape of any society that has lost touch with God? At Seabrook College we strive to fill this hole with tradition, with spiritual education, with healthy outdoor activity and with love. Today, the report card that our Holy Father has given us tells us that we must try harder. Daniel is united with Him now. But for the other boys, and for ourselves too, we must learn to be more watchful, more vigilant, against the forces of darkness, in the many alluring guises those forces have learned to hide themselves…’
A photographer is waiting on the steps after the service. As the doors open he springs into position, but before he can snap a single shot, Tom Roche has charged over to accost him. The man half-rises, hands wheeling, arguing his case; Tom does not listen, keeps jostling him backwards till the photographer loses his footing and stumbles down the steps. The Automator places a discreet hand on Tom’s shoulder, but the man is already on his way, complaining bitterly about censorship.
After the cemetery, there is a reception in the school. The St Brigid’s girls are whisked away by their guardians, but many of the second-years come back for weak tea and drooping, plasticky hamand-cheese sandwiches, served from a trestle table in Our Lady’s Hall. The slim man in the dark suit talking to one of the priests is Juster’s father; he looks exhausted, wrung-out, like he’s spent the last seven days in a spin-cycle. His wife is washed up against him, clinging lifelessly to his arm like seaweed, with no pretence of listening to the priest’s small talk. Howard searches about for Farley, wondering how long he has to wait before he can politely leave. Then: ‘Ah, Howard, there you are,’ a voice says at his ear. ‘Someone I’d like you to meet.’ Before he can protest or escape, the Automator has steered him right up to the bereaved parents.
They greet the stuttering interloper without pleasure; on hearing his name, however, Juster’s father’s face quite changes – opens, in a curiously literal way, making him seem younger, recalling his son. ‘The history teacher,’ he says.
‘That’s right.’ Howard is not sure how to pitch his smile.
‘Daniel used to talk about your class. You’re doing the First World War at the moment.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Howard burbles gratefully, seizing on it as if for a life-belt but then unable to find the words to advance the conversation.
‘He was telling me about it just the other day. As a matter of fact he had a great-grandfather who fought in the war, on my wife’s side – isn’t that right, honey?’
Juster’s mother’s lips briefly approximate a smile; then she pinches her husband’s sleeve and he leans over so she can bring a cupped hand to his ear. He nods and, extending the smile and bowing to Howard and the others, she withdraws and makes her way down the hall. ‘My wife is very sick,’ he says, almost in passing; then, in a more meditative tone, ‘Yes, his name was Molloy, William Henry Molloy. He served in Gallipoli, though, not on the Western Front. I think Sinead still has some bits and pieces belonging to him somewhere in the house. Would they be of interest to you? I could dig them out for you, if you like.’
‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble…’
‘No trouble, no trouble…’ The man drifts off, tracing a thumbnail along his lower lip, then, resurfacing, says quite conversationally, ‘He didn’t want me to tell anyone about his mum – I don’t suppose he mentioned her to you, did he?’ He flashes ringed eyes at Howard, who takes a moment to realize that they are talking about Juster again. Stiffly, he shakes his head.
‘Kids are so secretive at that age – I don’t need to tell you that, I’m sure.’ The man smiles softly at Howard. ‘Do you have children yourself?’
‘Not yet,’ Howard says, visited as he speaks by an image of his empty house, the floor covered with pizza boxes and unfinished games of sudoku.
‘They have definite opinions on how things should be done.’ He smiles the weird faraway smile again. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to him, of course, I realize that now. I should have told someone to keep an eye on him. He needn’t have known. I was just so distracted. You know, an illness like that becomes such a marathon, the endless waiting for test results, for the next round of treatment. And at the back of my mind I suppose I was thinking the same thing he was, that if we all just sat tight maybe the whole thing would disappear. I didn’t think about the pressure it was putting him under, coping with it all alone. Now it’s too late.’
He trails off, lifts the spoon to stir his tea, replaces it without raising the cup to his lips, while Howard flails about for some words of consolation. ‘But Mr Costigan tells me –’ it is the other man who speaks first, addressing Howard with a resolute air ‘– that you talked to Daniel on a couple of occasions. I wanted to thank you for that. I’m glad he knew there was somewhere he could go.’
‘You’re welcome.’ The words whistle faintly through Howard’s lips, like his mouth has been shot full of novocaine; he reaches out to shake the hand the man extends, as inside he feels his body turn to ashes. Then, gratefully, he steps aside, as Tom approaches to pay his respects, his handsome, lean-jawed face heavy with compassion.
Juster’s mother is waiting in the car outside, and it is not long before her husband, thanking the faculty again, leaves to join her. Shortly afterwards the caterers begin to stow the dirty crockery.
The crowd has dissipated, and the remnant that continues to the Ferry is made up of teachers alone. The mood they bring in with them is broody and mean, and drinking at three o’clock the worst thing for it. In an hour everyone is tipsy and unstable. The women, most of whom are mothers, dab at tears; emergent sunlight streams through the window and blares from the hideous floral carpet, combining with the beer to make Howard’s head ache. He wants to go home but is locked into a corner by Farley, who’s drinking double whiskeys and has embarked on a long, bitter diatribe that has no real subject but keeps coming back to Father Foley’s sermon. ‘He’s supposed to be a man of God, and he gets up there and spouts this stupid, vacuous – I mean, did he think for a second about how people might feel?’
‘I didn’t think it was that bad,’ Howard says blandly. ‘I mean, no worse than you’d expect.’
‘For God’s sake, life is like a doughnut? Has the poor kid not undergone enough without being dragged in to star as a metaphor for modern society?’
‘Well, he did have a point,’ Howard says. ‘I agree it may not have been tasteful…’
‘Juster didn’t die from eating a doughnut, Howard. He died from a fucking giant overdose of painkillers.’
‘I know that, but the stuff about junk food, and the world we’re handing down to these kids…’
‘I’m not denying that for one second. It’s a shitty fucking world, no question, and right from the off these kids are in the crosshairs, being told to buy this, buy that, lose weight, dress like a hooker, get bigger muscles – by grown men, Howard, it’s grown men and women doing this, I mean the cynicism of it is unbelievable, but my point is, my point –’ he stalls, head veering in vague circles like an errant compass needle ‘– that fool, that silly old man, and the Automator and all of them, they carry on like it’s outside, all the bad stuff is outside, and we’re this embattled force protecting them from it, when it’s us too, Howard, when we’re filling them with our own brand of bullshit, about tradition and whatever, setting them up to take their places at the top of the shitheap like this is some noble thing, when it’s all just money, and who they are is incidental, they’re just the means of allowing Seabrook to keep being fucking Seabrook –’